Dinosaur Kale with Baby Potatoes

Check out these “eggs in a nest” baby potatoes from Hank. Perfect for spring! ~Elise

I made this dish up on a whim. Elise and I were at the market and I saw some pretty Lacinato kale and gorgeous multi-colored baby potatoes. I knew I had to combine them somehow, and I liked the idea of “eggs in a nest,” especially around Easter.

Lacinato, also known as cavolo nero or dinosaur kale, is pretty much the darkest green vegetable I know of. It is more tender than regular kale, and its leaves are deeply savoyed—crinkled, like savoy cabbage, which is lacinato kale’s cousin. Don’t use regular kale as a substitute, if you can’t find lacinato kale. Use chard instead.

I cook the potatoes in stock here, which looks wasteful but it’s not: You can reuse the potato-enriched stock in another recipe. It is great as a base for polenta or rice.

Prep:10 minutes

Cook:40 minutes

Yield:Serves 4 as a side dish.

Try to find the smallest potatoes you can for this recipe. It will still be good with larger potatoes, but you lose the pretty "eggs in a nest" effect.

Ingredients

2 cups vegetable or chicken stock

2 cups water

1 pound baby potatoes of various colors

3 Tbsp olive oil, divided

1 pound dinosaur kale or Swiss chard, chopped roughly

3 garlic cloves, chopped

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Salt and black pepper

Grated zest of a lemon

Lemon juice to taste

Method

1 Bring the stock and water to a boil and add the potatoes. Turn the heat down to simmer gently until the potatoes are tender, about 20-30 minutes. Drain (you can reserve the stock and water to cook rice or polenta with later) and coat the potatoes with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Salt well and set aside.

2 Heat the remaining olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat for 1-2 minutes. Add the kale and turn to coat with the oil as it wilts. Add the garlic and toss to combine, then add the red pepper flakes and some salt and black pepper. Stir-fry this for 2 minutes, then turn off the heat and cover the pan. Wait 2-4 minutes before uncovering.

3 To serve, mix the lemon zest with the kale. Lay down a "nest" of kale on the plate and arrange the baby potatoes in the center. Squeeze some lemon juice over everything right as you serve.